India Society: 50 years of cultural enrichment

Fifty years ago, finding Indian immigrants in Worcester was a difficult task.

"We had to go through the phone book to find Indian-sounding names," said Ashish Cowlagi, vice president of the India Society of Worcester.

Slowly, a community was built. It was a place for Indian immigrants to gather for traditional food with people of their own culture.

The handful of founders, who were mostly students from Worcester State College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Clark University, wanted a place to gather with others who were 8,000 miles from home.

"We've come a long way," said Mr. Cowlagi, who noted that Indian-Americans are the largest growing minority in Shrewsbury.

Today, the India Society of Worcester offers activities for each age group and has a reach of about 2,000 people with roughly 400 active members.

It is celebrating its 50th anniversary through programs such as Bollywood Night, an expanded showcase India event and several other events.

"It has been a busy summer," said Rajiv Dayal, president of the organization.

In addition to cultural events throughout the year, the organization has established a crisis committee, a language school, dance and singing classes, a senior group, and a free health care clinic that is open to the public.

But while the society has evolved substantially in the past 50 years, it has no plans of slowing down.

At 152 West Main St., the parking lot fills up quickly. Inside the organization's single-story building is a wide entryway where last Wednesday people signed in to the health clinic and the volunteers managed the paperwork.

To the left are a handful of rooms branching off a narrow hallway. A large painting of Mohandas Ghandi hangs on the wall. Children can be heard singing from inside one of the rooms, where a class is held each week. Some rooms are set up for the clinic, with others set up with children's desks or tables and chairs for adults.

To the right of the entry is a gathering room with space for at least 200 people. Chairs line the walls but are moved out of the way for dance classes, yoga, the language school or other events.

"It's been 10 years since we had the center and we're really starting to push at the seams," Mr. Dayal said.

The society has to go to other venues to fit all the members for its events throughout the year, he said.

The language and cultural school, which currently has about 165 students enrolled, has to split into several shifts to accommodate all the students. That prevents parents from being able to interact more, he said.

To solve the problem, the organization plans to add on to the building, but "it's going to take a lot," he said.

In addition to making more physical space, the society hopes to add more networking opportunities for its members, through workshops and events on how to build a business or seminars on different industries.

Mr. Cowlagi said that the India Society has a substantial pool of young professionals and budding entrepreneurs that he hopes to better serve by establishing an organization similar to Boston's Network of South Asian Professionals.

"This is one of the hotbeds of activity," he said.

Originally dubbed the Indian Society of Worcester, the group changed its name because "People thought it was Native American," Mr. Cowlagi said.

In a 1986 Telegram & Gazette article, India Society founder Shyam S. Sharma described most Indians coming into the country as doctors, scientists, professors and business executives, making it easier to become involved in American culture and politics.

It was about that time, said Dr. Sahdev R. Passey, that "we started thinking about the second generation."

The society established a language and cultural school, so children could learn their parents' native languages as well as Indian history and customs.

Dr. Passey moved to the region in 1973 and has been a member of the group since the mid-1980s. He now works as a pediatrician in Worcester and lives in Holden.

According to the Telegram & Gazette archives, nearly 750 Indian people lived in Worcester County in 1980.

At the time, according to an article from that time, Indian people were considered one of the "new ethnic groups" along with Hispanic and Vietnamese people, who were also "slowly joining the mainstream."

But by 1992, about 100 families were living in Worcester, with 75 in Shrewsbury and others flooding to Westboro, Northboro and Paxton.

It was around that time that the group acquired a five-acre parcel on West Main Street in Shrewsbury that included a house and a garage used for programs, lectures and language classes.

Between 1990 and 2000, the Asian-American population of Shrewsbury rose by 166 percent, according to a study by the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. The study also reported that nearly 75 percent of working Indians in the region held management and professional jobs, with almost half having graduate or professional degrees.

Over the years, the society has hosted countless events and programs, from its annual India Day festival to a gathering to mourn Rajiv Ghandi just days after his assassination in 1991, and sending resources to India after an earthquake struck its west coast in 2001.

For the past seven years, the society has run a free health care clinic at the building and has served about 1,600 patients.

Dr. Passey, who founded the clinic, said that while at least 85 percent of those who go are Indian, it is open to anyone in the community.

All those who participate are volunteers and include dietitians, mental health professionals and cardiologists.

Due to exponential growth, the society invested about $700,000 to build the 4,525-square-foot cultural center. The building opened in mid-2004 and was hoped to be a "link" for the next generation to their Indian roots.

"My goal is to at least lay the foundation. You have to believe in yourself, and once people see the foundation and walls, I believe they will come forward," Satya B. Mitra said during the planning stages in 1996, when he was president of the society.

That foundation has been built with people like Kavya Raghunathan.

At 17, Kavya will graduate from Shrewsbury High School in the spring. She and her family moved to Shrewsbury from California about six years ago and she quickly became involved in the India Society.

She started out in the language program, and in eighth grade joined the India Youth Group. In June, she was elected president.

Like many Indian children, she became active in a handful of activities, including teaching Indian dance classes.

"ISW opens a lot of doors," said her father, Arumugham Raghunathan, who speaks four Indian languages and is a neuroscientist.

He said he and his wife chose to move to Shrewsbury because of the school district and the thriving Indian population, which has grown from eight families on his street to about 15.

The youth group has about 40 active members, she said, and helps out with most programs that are held by the society. In late April each year, it organizes the Showcase India event. The group also does volunteer work throughout the year: sorting gifts around Christmas time, participating in the Walk for Hunger, the UMass Cancer Walk as well as the Relay for Life.

"All of my best friends I met through (the India Society)," she said. "I definitely see myself here for the 100th Anniversary."

Contact Alli Knothe at aknothe@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @KnotheA